Poll: Voters lukewarm to Brown’s tax, school policies

Voter resistance to higher taxes is not the only challenge facing Gov. Jerry Brown’s initiative campaign to raise as much as $9 billion in new revenues for schools and public safety.

A Public Policy Institute of California poll released Wednesday night found that 54 percent of likely voters disapprove of the way Brown is handling K-12 schools overall.

To overcome those doubts, Brown will have to enlist educators and business leaders to actively promote the tax increases if he is to have any chance of success in November, said PPIC President Mark Baldassare.

“He can’t carry this on his own,” Baldassare said.

And it’s not just the governor. Sixty-nine percent of Californians disapprove of the way lawmakers are dealing with school issues, according to the survey.

“They feel leadership is letting them down,” Baldassare explained. “That doesn’t mean they might not support the initiative or reforms. At this point, they are not seeing evidence of the kind of performance and improvement that would lead them to do so.”

Brown’s initiative would raise the state sales tax by a quarter-cent for four years and impose higher income tax rates on individuals earning at least $250,000 ($500,000 for couples) for seven years.

Fifty-four percent of likely voters said they support Brown’s overall initiative. But that’s a slim lead.

Further, while nearly two out of every three likely voters said they prefer taxing the rich, just 46 percent support increasing the sales tax.

The survey results are more gloomy for a competing initiative sponsored by civil rights attorney Molly Munger and the state PTA.

Their measure would raise money for K-12 and early childhood education with higher income tax rates on nearly all wage earners except for the poorest.

PPIC did not poll voters about that initiative specifically. But 57 percent replied “no” when asked if they support a broad-based increase in personal income taxes to pay for K-12 schools.

But how voters respond in November will not be determined solely by who feels the pinch where, Baldassare said. Election Day returns will also depend on how positively voters view their schools and whether they are convinced new revenues will go directly to the classrooms and not diverted by Sacramento.

“While many Californians believe that the state’s budget situation is a big problem for public schools, few think that money alone is the answer,” he said. “Most continue to say that significant improvements in the quality of education will take place when we spend money more wisely.”

Brown has proposed a number of reforms to squeeze more out of fewer dollars, primarily by freeing schools from the yoke of state-mandated programs. Instead, he has proposed providing more block grants and letting school districts pick and choose based on local priorities.

The poll shows voters agree with those approaches. They do want to see districts control the dollars. The PPIC survey said, of all of the adults polled, 89 percent are more confident that local districts or schools would use their tax dollars more wisely than the state.